Salt Lake City leaders have a new plan to mitigate all the construction coming to downtown Salt Lake City.

That plan is a nouveau public art project city leaders hope is intriguing enough to draw people downtown, even during the worst of the construction.

And while the $80,000 project is intriguing, at least one City Council member said approving the plan may be throwing money down the drain.

"I don't know that it's going to attract people downtown," Councilman Van Turner said. "Pretty soon downtown will be all torn up, and if there's a huge traffic jam, I don't know if you're going to go out of your way to see some public art."

This week, the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency Board gave preliminary approval to a partnership with the Salt Lake City Arts Council, which plans to place 10 to 15 temporary public art projects throughout downtown. The temporary projects will be unique as artists are charged to create pieces of art around several 12-foot-high, 6-inch-around poles that can fit into temporary concrete anchors.

"This is a departure" from normal public arts projects that are usually permanent, arts council director Nancy Boskoff said. However, "it is something that is a win-win for both the public and the artists."

Artists like the idea because they have some flexibility to use materials that don't have to withstand 100 years of weathering. The public benefits because they can enjoy the projects for a while and then enjoy a change of scenery when the art is removed to make way for other projects. The art will be displayed for two to three years — enough time to outlast the worst of downtown's pending construction.

In the coming years, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is expected to begin its estimated $500 million redevelopment of the Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls downtown. Also Salt Lake County is moving forward with a $60 million Salt Palace Convention Center expansion project and the Utah Transit Authority and Salt Lake City plan to extend the TRAX light rail line near The Gateway shopping center.

City leaders want to hire a small-businesses ombudsman to help city businesses that are negatively affected by the construction and now figure the new temporary art project will help bring people downtown during construction as well.

"The idea to put more art downtown is great," Deputy Mayor Rocky Fluhart said. "It will continue the livening up of our downtown."

Still, not everyone was jumping up and down about the idea.

The art projects will cost the RDA $80,000, which one councilman suggested is too much for temporary art. Van Turner said that when the temporary art is removed from downtown, it should find a permanent place in a city park, housing complex or even at Library Square.

"If we're going to spend the money, it ought to be permanent," he said.

But most council members seemed more than happy to sign off on the project and offered suggestions on where the art might go.

"You've got great options throughout Main Street," RDA Board Chairman Eric Jergensen said.

Boskoff said the arts council will put the projects out for bid next month. When the bids come back, the arts council board will make final selections and bring them back to the RDA Board for approval.

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E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com